Waves in the Moonlight
by M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng
Summary: What Ben wants is to take Mal on a romantic moonlit stroll on the beach. What he gets is more information about the Isle that he maybe didn't want to know. Chronologically third in the "Sins of the Father" series.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the movie(s)** ** _Descendants_** **or any related media, any associated characters, settings, or events; all rights belong to their respective creators.**

 **Cover is by the ever-brilliant Phoebe594!**

 **My Descendants world is mainly based off of movie canon, but pulls a little from the books (where they do not contradict the movie, because Disney is bad at continuity), my own extrapolations/headcanons of events (because Disney seriously sugar-coats or ignores all the deeper issues), and various other Disney movies (because this world is only barely sketched out and there's a lot of room to play and I can do what I want).**

 **This particular one-shot is set sometime between the first and second movies, probably closer to the first.**

 **It is part of a series called "The Sins of the Father."**

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"You want to do what?" she asks incredulously.

"Come on, moonlight glinting off the waves is the prettiest thing," he insists. He's about to add _Except you_ and maybe something teasing, but she's got that wry tilt to her lips again that means the girl from the Isle is amused by something he may never truly understand, so instead he says, "What?" She tilts her head at that, questioning, and he says, "You lived on an island, and I imagine you were very active at night, you have to have seen the moonlight on the waves before. Didn't you think it was pretty? All silver instead of golden like the sunshine?"

He's already half laughing as he asks it, mostly at himself, but the laugh freezes in his throat and the blood freezes in his veins at her casual and utterly heartbreaking answer.

"There wasn't much moonlight on the Isle, really." She snorts. "Sunlight, either, for that matter. Cloud layer's too thick." She pauses for what would be a heartbeat if his heart weren't physically aching too much for that and adds flippantly, "And even if there were, it wouldn't be _glinting_ off of anything. Everything's too dirty for that."

She's laughing as she says it, that snort-chuckle of dark but genuine amusement that never fails to accompany something that breaks his heart; at time like these the combination of his mother's compassion and his father's temper that he inherited makes itself abundantly known and he aches and rages on her behalf. Because she doesn't seem to: she's always so calm, so casual, so _accepting_ of things that still shock him and call the beast inside him to the forefront. How can she just accept that _his father_ deprived her of _basic human rights_ like _sunshine_ for most of her life, like that's just a normal thing? How can she still love him, in spite of what she's gone through because of his family and people like them? Anything less than sheer hatred would be a wonder, but somehow she actually _loves him_.

Faintly, he hears himself trying to pull something nice from her childhood— _anything_ —and asking, "Do you at least find the ocean peaceful? Calm? Even if it's not pretty?"

She snorts again, harder, and his heart sinks further. "Anywhere near the ocean is _not_ territory you want to go for a stroll in," she says emphatically. "The only time I would usually go anywhere near the water was when the barges came in and there's nothing _peaceful_ or _calm_ about _that_. Ditto any other time I happened to need to go near the water for whatever reason; it's never peaceful going into someone else's territory, especially without a _very_ good reason."

He stares at her, not sure what to say to that—he knows this conversation is going to join the others already haunting him—until she begins to be visibly uncomfortable. "Sorry," he says, though he's not sure if he's apologizing for this moment or her life. She shrugs in response and he decides that this is one of those things that she's missed and he can't fathom that he can make up for lost time on.

"Now we definitely have to go down to the shore and watch the waves in the moonlight."

 _(She's never very open with her reactions to things, so he's not entirely sure if she actually enjoyed the experience or if she just didn't complain because she knew he did. A week later, though, she presents him with a painting that she'd made—on canvas, using actual paints, in the art class that she finally signed up for and assures him she actually enjoys—it's the ocean under a field of stars and a bright full moon, all traced in silver on a solid black background. Evie sees it and smiles and he finds out she had dragged the other three down to the shore the next night. That's the highest praise he can think of from her: a painting and showing her friends.)_

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 **Have a wicked day!**

 **M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng**


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